Watanabe Coffee – Singapore

You must be aware of this new cafe in the Isetan Department Store at Shaw Centre, if you’re a regular in Orchard area. It is accessible both from the street as well as from the Isetan store itself.

It piqued my interest when I passed by Watanabe Coffee for the first time, and it excited my curiosity when I couldn’t get a table for the second time because of the long queue. When I managed to get a table two weeks later, I was more than intriqued to know whether the food there could live up to my expectation.

Spacious with an open glass facade, slight industrial look due to the hanging tungsten lights, bricked walls, cemented floor, and gunny sacks here and there, softened by the plant in pots and comfortable seating made me want to come back there…order anything… just to enjoy the ambience.

It seemed pretty popular to both Japanese and locals. I lost count of the number of Japanese families with young children that surrounded our table. And I noticed the rest tables were occupied by locals. I think it’s only our table that consisted of one Indonesian, one Korean and one Chinese.

Watanabe Coffee offers a variety of Japanese-Western fusion dishes, so we found various option of Japanese food with Western twist and vice versa.

I tried my friend’s Japanese Neapolitan ($15.80) which was fragrant, savoury and slightly tangy, as the taste of the reduced tomato-based sauce permeated by the pork bacon aroma.

Baked Rice with Hamburge Steak (Demi-Glace and Egg) ($20.80) was the one that I chose for my lunch. The cheesy baked rice was like a fluffy down comforter, you just want to slide in and pull it up over your head. This one was especially calm-inducing with cream, buttery sautéed onions, and cheese, and it paired beautifully with the beef patties which were well-cooked and flavourful.

The Potato Salad ($7.80) appeared less appealing than what I saw in the menu, and what I could say was I tried better one.

We also picked Potato Wedges ($8.80) from the Finger Food Menu, and they tasted like ordinary potato wedges with way too much oil in it.

I had the JapaneseIced Matcha Latte ($8.10) for the drink. I usually opt for coffee and I’m never a fan of anything with matcha but I made an exception that time thinking which place suits more than the Japanese-Western cafe to try Japanese Ice Matcha Latte. It was refreshing, had the right amount of sweetness and not overpowered by the milk, but it couldn’t change me to become a fan. And I didn’t hear any remarkable comments from my friends whom ordered Capuccino ($7.60) and Cafe Latte ($7.80). I brought them before to some artisan coffee cafes such as Common Man Coffee Roasters, Baker and Cook, Carpenter and Cook, and I think they fancied their coffee in those places.

Hopefully, with more Japanese cafes opening in Singapore, this would turn into a solid trend and raise the bar for the overall industry here like what I found in Japan.